Emma is SOOOO cute!

Tonight Emma was playing on the bottom stair. She was being silly and then fell an hurt her arm. She was fine but needed a little extra love from her dad.

Dan was holding her and she wrapped her little arms all the way around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.

In her sweet little voice you hear her say, "I love you Daddy Warbucks!"

Maybe she's been watching a little too much Annie!

Bend it like Beckham...

Anna is playing soccer for the first time this year. She is so excited to be just like Julia. She was terribly disapointed that she won't be playing on Julia's team - but we're gearing her up to play on her own team with her own friends.

Julia has been teaching her how to kick the ball and they have been practicing their dribbling. Anna loves to pick up the ball and put it back down in the right place to kick it - but she's slowly growing out of that habit.

So, next week starts soccer practice for both girls (Em is devastated she's not playing too!) and they have their first games the week after that. I so love soccer with the pre-school set. It's a little early for heavy duty competition and they really are just having fun and making lots of "video moments".

This is Julia's last year in this age bracket. Next season they get serious and start really playing competitively. She just found out that her 2 best friends are on her team and she's thrilled!

It begins....

School starts on Wednesday and we're almost ready. Backpack has been purchased (gotta love the back to school sale at LL Bean), and the Kleen Canteen for the daily water.

We don't buy school supplies here, so a backpack, new shoes and some supplies for lunch are much less expensive than $150 in paper/crayons/notebooks. :) I love that.

We learned our lesson with the backpack from last school year. It was also a Bean bag - and it held up great - except the fact that it is FILTHY! Julia wanted a purple bag and it was a solid light purple color. The first time or two it cleaned up great in the wash. After that - not so much. Lesson learned. Dark bottom - check. Pattern - check. Her backpack from kindergarten is in perfect condition still it's just too small to hold snowpants, boots, lunch, etc. I'm hoping this bag with it's dirt camouflage will hold us over for a year or so.

We're not buying a lot of school clothes - well, actually right now we're not buying any. We have some clothes from last year that she never grew into that she's getting close to, and until it's time for long sleeves and pants - I want to wait and see what size she is in.

Let's just say it's time for school to start. She misses her friends and the occasional play date isn't cutting it. We've had a great summer and it's time to start 2nd grade!!

I'm DONE!

The training is over and for all my complaining it really wasn't as horrid as I made it out to be. Boring - yes! It was helpful though and I did learn a lot. I think it could have been one week... but that's ok!

So - now I'm just waiting for my appointment and I'm ready to released out into the world to bind P&C insurance policies.

Well... not exactly since I'm not working as an agent, I'm just going to be using my new talents and skills to cover the office for my client when she's gone - but still.

Are you properly insured???

Brain... Fried.... Overload....

I have completed one week of insurance hell. It actually hasn't been too bad. I've been able to get out early all week and I really have learned a lot. I have learned I'm pretty darn good at it - which is a bit of surprise to me (and I guess to everyone else). My instructor told me today that when she first met me she wasn't sure if it would be my thing - but after this week she's impressed with how effective I am with MY style. I should be training them...

Having such ease with computers really does help since I find myself a heck of a lot faster than the others - but it also makes the day a lot more boring.

I like the people I've met and although we have different goals from our endeavors (they are going to actually be full time agents) we seem to be pretty cohesive as a group.

I'm also surprised at how much I remember from the studying I did for that ridiculous licensing exam!!! I really thought it went out the window as soon as I passed - but I did store some in my long term memory!

So - this week was a bit of a surprise. I always am shocked when I'm good at something (I was so nervous I vomited Monday before I left!!), and it's nice to participate in a training that is actually useful!

Julia starts school after Labor Day. So, next week is my last week of training, and then we'll get Julia in school.... then I should be back around more often! I had 1300 blog posts on Google Reader to catch up on, so I dumped them all and I'm going to have to work my way back into my favorites!

Enjoy the end of summer!

Holy Olympics Batman...

So, I'm caught up. The Olympics are awesome.

The opening ceremony was just amazing. The girls managed to sit and watch 90% of it - an amazing feat if I say so.

Loving it!

Done

So. We're home. Everyone except Dan is suffering from post-lake depression. The kids are out of their minds insane. They miss their grandparents, they miss the freedom they have at the lake, they miss constant access to friends, swimming and well... just the lake.

I know it will just take time but it sucks. I have always had a hard time adjusting when I got home too and it's no different now. It may even be more difficult since we spent so much time there this summer.

Pinochle

Who the hell invented Pinochle? What an F'ed up game that is! I'm fairly sure someone was sitting around high on something and said, "let's make a fairly easy game really messed up by rearranging the values of the cards. A ha, let's make 10 worth more than a King but 9 still be less than a Jack."

More lake ramblings

We have had an amazing summer up at the lake.

It rained so hard that the beach completely disappeared. It has only been like that one other time in my life. The girls have fallen in love with the lake, mountains and people just like we all have. It's not unusual for them to spend 10 hours a day in the water and to fall asleep during dinner.

The rain hasn't even been enough to stop us since we play cards and read books instead. Without computers, tvs, etc... it's really as Leave it to Beaver as it sounds.

After the kids are asleep there has been lots of adult bonding time as the middle generation (not quite adult fire and no longer kid fire material) hang out by campfires, makeshift campfires, oil lamp lit tables. There were new drink discoveries (whoo hoo Chris for lending us your faith in Midori) and a wonderful night with Rum Punch, popcorn and rain.

A momentary break....

We're back in reality for a few days to regroup, do laundry, catch up with clients and take real showers. Really we're back so I can erase the DVR to tape the Olympics while we're gone!

I'm so excited for the Olympics - it's ridiculous.

The biggest news in my absence was that my beloved computer has come down with the blue screen of death. It's sad, but my hard drive went kaput. Now I am busy reconfiguring my back up with the programs that were loaded on the other computer and yanking stuff off of my external hard drive. For all that we've been through - that computer and me - I'm sad to see it go. I'm not sure how to proceed since I was hoping that computer would get me through at least March.

Dan is back to work (did I mention he was out of work? Oh no, well he was, and it has made for a super fun May - July) and is in the trenches for 8-10 more weeks. I think this big change is a good thing, but it is making our complicated lives even more complicated. I'm just endlessly hopeful that this is the beginning of a great thing.

Our dryer is taking 2-3 cycles to dry things and it's too humid to hang anything to dry. Let me just tell you how much I hate that. We normally air dry 50-75% of our clothes, and with this ridiculous humidity nothing is drying on its own. My superpower sense of smell leaves me unable to handle even a slight hint of that musty smell so I'm left with abusing my dryer. Now it's fighting back and making my life hell.

So, Project Runway anyone? hmmmmmmm.... that's what I thought.

Last week I read the Twilight series. It was delicious and fun and just what I needed on the beach (or in the cabin late at night to battle my insomnia!). I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the ending, but it might be that I have never enjoyed the end of anything. It did provide me with some big laughs and I'm relatively at ease with the whole happy ending thing.

The pull of reality is out there and our time at the lake is quickly coming to an end. I have two weeks of training the end of August to complete and then school starts and it's just back to our other life.